January Wrap Up

Kaley’s favorite part of January is her birthday. She turned 3 this year. She had lots of fun celebrating and opening presents. Her birthday was the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. day so we took advantage of the day off of school to do some playing. Jarl came home early and we took the kids swimming—Kaley’s favorite activity. After swimming we changed and met the Jacobsons at Five Guys for dinner to celebrate Aunt Erika’s and Kaley’s birthdays. Afterwards we went to Searles for cake, cheesecake, and ice cream and to open presents. On her actual birthday Kaley asked if she could open her presents right after the kids got home from school so she did. Then we had funny pancakes for dinner at her request and cheesecake for dessert. Grandma and Grandpa Roper came over after dinner bringing more presents. Kaley truly loved her birthday and tells me a couple of times a week that she’s still the birthday girl.

Jarl’s and mine present arrived the afternoon of Kaley’s birthday. We got a new baby grand piano. I thought it would take us awhile to find what we were looking for but we did it in two weekends. We got  a shiny black 4’11” Young Chang baby grand. We got it tuned last week and now I love it even more. I’m playing more, Jarl’s started practicing (we got him an adult piano course so he could start working towards his dream of playing Riding West by Jon Schmidt), and we just bought books so Jacob and Makayla can start learning. Having a piano in our home is such a blessing.

Kaley got to open birthday presents a few more times. Once was the Sunday after Kaley’s birthday at a birthday celebration at Ropers for Kaley, her cousin Ashlyn, and her aunt Angelisa. Then she got a late present from Grandma and Grandpa Roper on the 23 and another present from Aunt Camille on the 30. She loved having all those opportunities to open gifts and we’re grateful to all our family for their generosity.

Monday the 23 was Chinese New Year so we made potstickers for the kids (they only went over so so) and had the kids color an envelope red so we could give them red envelopes. The tradition is for unmarrieds and kids to ask marrieds for red envelopes and for marrieds to give them with money inside. The kids were pretty excited to get a dollar.

Jacob had pajama day at school on Friday the 27^th since his class was good for their substitutes Tuesday and Wednesday. He was so excited he was bouncing off the walls Thursday evening. He loved taking his pillow, blanket, and Zoey (his stuffed jaguar). He had to write a letter as part of his homework that week so he chose to write to his Uncle Aaron who’s serving a mission in Honduras. He has discovered that he loves to read and he loves these short chapter books we inherited from his cousins. It makes him feel good that he can read them in a couple of hours. I’ll catch him reading first thing in the morning on weekends, during rest time, and at other random times. I love it.

Makayla is struggling with number 11-20. She'll get it. She just needs some extra work. She got a Cougar Pride Ticket (they're the Lake Ridge Cougars) for working and cleaning up during center time. This is a school-wide recognition/reward program. This is her third time this year. She was really excited about that. And the last Sunday of January she earned a Super Singing recognition during primary. She really wanted one so she worked hard to earn one. It was fun to watch her determination.

Emma's finally decided in mid-January that solid food isn't so bad, especially since I've figured out how she likes it mixed. She's eating much better and having solids twice a day now.